Debt Collection C’ttee very necessary – ECG to ACEP

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has the establishment of a committee to oversee the collection of unpaid bills owed by consumers.

“It is a clear directive backed by the government for us to do that and this is more efficient than what we used to have – the normal team. It’s not the same,” said the Public Relations Officer of the ECG, William Boateng.

The Power Minister has set up a committee to retrieve all outstanding monies owed the electricity company.

This is aimed at injecting money into the operations of the power distributor and also enable the ECG settle its debts to the various power producers.

The Power Minister, Dr.Kwabena Donkor said the huge unpaid debt by power consumers was rapidly collapsing the ECG and the committee was formed to avert the situation.

However, the move has received some backlash from the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) who have described the work of the committee as a waste of time.

ACEP’s Executive Director, Dr. Amin Adams in an earlier interview with Citi News said the Power Minister is better placed to get the government to pay its debts since it is the biggest debtor of the ECG.

But ECG’s, William Boateng explained that the committee is a more effective tool to get debtors to pay.

According to him, task forces will be set up at the regional and district levels and the committee will have the oversight responsibility by ensuring the task forces effectively undertake their mandate “without any excuse whatsoever.”

Mr. Boateng also disclosed that the committee will “deploy some of our workers from other departments to join the disconnection team so that we will beef up the numbers.”

He was certain that the committee will help the company retrieve the over GHC 500 million owed it.

“We buy the power from our suppliers so we will have to make sure we pay them. they bill us weekly and over the years, we are unable to pay them fully and that means we are also accumulating debt,” he added.